Born to Die
by DamaVerde
Summary: Everything began when Thundercracker started to feel a strange interest for the earthlings.   And then things become very hard indeed, involving him and its fellows in an unexpected adventure. An adventure at close range with some squishies...
1. Chapter 1

**A really important initial note**: my English sucks! xD  
>This ff was originally written in Italian (if you'd like, check back my profile for the original version in my mother language), well, because I'm Italian!<br>I'm not a translator, I'm not good at all in English.**  
>Translating is far from being something that I can do properly.<strong>_  
>But... but... but...<em>  
>But a friend of mine asks for a translation, being curious about this ffiction. So... I decided to <strong>TRY <strong>to realize a **pitiful** attempt to something like a translation. _That's all._  
>Be kind, and don't commit suicide after reading my messy work! xD<em><br>Every suggestion is appreciated._

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><p><strong>File…00.01.00 -<strong> **P****rologue**

The sky seemed to have been permanently darkened by the smoke of the battles.

The dark, dusty hood of death.

Thundercracker repressed a motion of true disgust towards that world, towards that planet deprived of hope and its inhabitants that, without wings, remained anchored to the ground and subjected to torment.

Small things, fragile ants that would have never be lifted above that dusty and dirty blanket: humans.

_Humans._

He despised them the same way he was able to pity them. The earthlings had stolen the honor from the Decepticons; they had become their toys, a reason of shame for a warrior. A reason good enough to boast a butcher.

Thundercracker felt the need to rise from that dirty and inauspicious earth, and it was a neverending need.

Shamefully similar to the desire for an escape.

Was this so immoral to be desired? To rise higher over the clouds and then, to be faster than any other thing, more powerful, more aware of his own superiority towards the purity of the stars and the sidereal spaces that belonged to him.

He didn't realize to have stopped, to have closed the eyes in order to facilitate the job of his own memory in evoking those images and the sense of honor and freedom that followed them

- Dude. - the voice of Skywarp brusquely brought him to the filthy place where they were; he turned over, staring at him, silently.

- Hey, what's up? - there was such an incredulity, such a deep unawareness in the tone, in the optics of his friend than he could even have been able to end up appreciating the hilarity of the moment.

- Nothing.

- No, it isn't true. There's something, c'mon. Tell me everything!

Thundercracker kept being silent, staring at the Decepticons that preceded them: Megatron, obviously, Starscream and Soundwave.

And that was one of the worst processions he had ever taken part in light years.

Skywarp snorted unable to hide his own disappointment.

- Oh.

Thundercracker seriously took into consideration to stop, to transform and to escape to some other place. But he had done it recently, often enough, and without any result. At least he could focus on other stuff, and he could try not to pay much attention to what Soundwave was saying.

And, nevertheless, there was a part of him that didn't succeed in avoiding a perverse and disgusting fascination for the matter that Megatron seemed to approve with so much interest.

And no matter how much he repeated himself that it was only a matter of scientific interest, he couldn't succeed in accepting it.

_Humans._

To use the terrestrials to modify them up to make them useful.

Soundwave opened the doors of the great hangar that temporarily hosted the laboratories of research, and Thundercracker felt a bothering, strange feeling flowing deeply through his circuits. Almost as if a plethora of ancestors' ghosts had leaned out from some extra-temporal dimension to hiss into his audio sensors: _butcher, butcher, butcher._

And all of this while a more practical instinct, more primordial, his being used to the war and the oncoming events excited him inside perversely matching together what he wanted with what he found permissible.

If the human ones had never existed, he wouldn't had tried anything the like.

He slightly moved to avoid to be pushed ahead from Skywarp - Stop it! - he snarled.

- Ugh! Is your voice back, eh? Don't you think that the idea of this place is disgusting? The meat bags don't deserve these attentions. They are too much fragile.

The other Decepticon avoided to answer focusing himself on what Soundwave was keeping on explaining.

- Advanced organic technology. Technological and biological components fused to cellular level. Starscream seemed to be enjoying the moment, pointing out a thing that Thundercracker would have preferred not to see - We had never reached this point, the superiority of these researches will allow us to create...

- Excellent! - Megatron interrupted him abruptly.

Thundercracker knew the way it had started; they had initially planned to realize some human forms to allow the Decepticons to infiltrate and to manipulate terrestrials. Very human-like forms. Able to deceive their kind senses. But it was something so degrading, and it had been, moreover, an useless research.

The brutal strength had not needed any further help.

And now they were taking advantage from some reverse engineering result to create the exact opposite. A human modified that owned the ability to be considered useful, but also without any will, any wish, so made that it would have been able to be controlled and eventually immolated without remonstration.

Not that this was a simple thing.

The human ones were so fragile. And if they had eventually reached the iron bed used for the experiments in a too weak state they would have been broken as useless toys.

_Primus!_

Thundercracker was very happy because this was not one of his business.

The delicate creatures of meat that had not been brought on the iron bed yet, were waiting for the previous experiment to fail and in the meanwhile were kept in another lab. Guarded and handcuffed as if they had had indeed some chances to run away.

And to go where, then?

The city was nothing more than ash and flames.

A heap of corpses, deposits and cockroaches hidden in the tunnels of that they defined subway.

As for him, Thundercracker believed that to impose to a Decepticon to guard the earthlings was a useless loss of time.

After one day the humans lost the strength and the desire to oppose, if that was not already happened during the capture.

They were there, simply. Organic things almost dead. Showing the whole weakness of their own race, the unworthiness of the creatures that didn't belong to the sky. Their own incapability to fight.

No, it was a whole monstrous loss of time.

Something that upset him enough.

He cast a last glance to the chained immovable hybrid to the feet of Megatron and he didn't succeed in holding back the shiver that crossed his circuits.

_(...to be continued)_

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><p><strong>Disclaimer:<strong> I don't own Transformers, nor do I own its copyrighted characters._  
>This is a fanfiction written just for fun, and no copyright infringement is intended!<em>  
>But I do own my original characters; so, please, do not reuse anything that is mine without permission.<em><br>If you'd like to know more about this fanfiction visit my profile for the link to my dA page._


	2. Chapter 2

_**Born to Die**_

**File…00.01.01 – The Watch**

Thundercracker froze in front of the huge metallic doors that blocked the access to the laboratory.

_What a... rage. _

He thought, before leaning himself on a heap of rubble that nobody had held necessary to remove: a pillar of metal melted by the heat, and fragments of cement that had been at the base of buildings something that, most probably, the fleshlings had believed unmovable.

_The Earth was indeed disgusting._

This was another of the things that left him full of doubts when he thought about earthlings: the concept of resistance, of durability that the human ones possessed was fallacious.

Everything on that cursed planet was embedded with an incredible fragility.

Thundercracker had never touched a human.

He had killed more earthlings than it was pleasing for him to remember, and saved someone when the surveillance of others was lacking over his actions, but touched never.

And why should he had done it?

If he had stretched a finger, and just practiced a laughable strength, he knew that he would have withdrawn it covered with the blood and with the disgusting substances that composed those delicate organic things. Those things, _people_, they had perhaps the same attitude toward the ants, and they thought about rocks and about their terrestrial metals as principles of stability, rocks and metals that he could have smashed in one touch.

How could it be possible to nourish the slightest sane interest towards the earthlings? Thundercracker cursed again the watch that he had not succeeded in avoiding. There was no need to open the doors and to enter. He could stay there and think about something else.

If Skywarp hadn't had something better to do, it was probable that, at the end, he would have lazed around to chat about trifles, for which Thundercracker would have been extremely thankful.

Or he would have popped out of nothing to try to catch him and to take him aback. No, there was not any reason for going into the laboratory. None of his comrades was working inside; at that point the experiments were able to proceed without a continuous supervision. However... However Thundercracker had never been alone there inside.

He had never had the time to observe with attention the fragile squishies. Or, at least, to do that without anyone else around to wonder why, or if his circuits were somehow confused.

A fixation usually passes when is sufficiently nurtured, and his disappointment would have disappeared and been forgotten if he had had the opportunity to fill his optics with the depressing images of the human frailty. With the images of the weakness that a warrior despised above everything.

Before being able to think about, his legs carried him to the doors, and his arms were already pushing to enter.

The laboratory was almost entirely silent, if not for the methodic and rhythmic ticking of the machinery that fed the thing at the center of the lab. But that thing for Thundercracker didn't mean nothing, and he didn't have any interest in it. He turned himself for observing, with attention and with a certain insane sense of anticipation, the line of bodies held back against the walls. Their number didn't mean anything. It was only a fact without importance.

What Thundercracker desired most was to _calculate_ the humanity. The moral value of those things. But, with the sense of relief that hoped would have freed him from the idea of becoming a butcher... in little fractions of human seconds it was certain that there was no difference between those people and the plants in a greenhouse, except for the fact that the vegetal kingdom of the planet Earth showed itself superior to the animal kingdom.

Its memory took note of mouths left half open, mouths pouring disgusting humors, and empty eyes. Abandoned muscles in the softness of the total surrender: when they would have been taken and brought on the metallic bed no one would have opposed resistance.

The most of the creatures received a forced feeding that made possible the survival.

If the term 'survival' was correct.

However, many would have died even before being considered useful: it was not easy to bear the synthetic substance that fed them and prepared them to what was to come.

They sipped component that upset the human body, so as to make easier the graft of mechanical and technological parts that could melt with their natural biological parts to a cellular level.

However, if the experiments had reached the end, those things would have been dead in any case.

Willing to give relief to what was left of his insanity and to go out and wait for Skywarp, Thundercracker stretched a finger and stopped it a few centimeters away from some bodies.

To dose the strength was not simple.

His perfect gears stirred with the maximum possible precision. Metal that tried to understand the nature of the meat.

Then a noise stopped him, making him slowly withdraw the finger. It was a gurgle full of rage, frustrated, full of primitive hate.

His optics met eyes that burned of that very feeling.

Thundercracker stiffened, returning to stretch the finger towards the fleshling, burning with the desire to touch muscles that now were reacting, meat contracted by the desire to fight and to oppose.

And everything while the usual accusatory humming in his mind repeated: butcher.

His hand opened, as if equipped of its own will, tearing the chains that had locked the fleshling to the wall. He transported the thing under one of the fluorescent lights that lighted the laboratory.

And the thing shut the eyes fighting against a spasm of pain. Turning among his fingers as a bug.

There was something obscene in the fluidity of movement of the human beings, Thundercracker lifted more the hand bending himself as not to lose one detail.

- Surrender yourself. - he sighed.

He felt the need for that thing to surrender to him, to admit defeat. He wanted the thing to show to be fragile and empty. Not a being, but a thing deprived of vital spark.

_Primus!_ Only to think about that that squishy could have a breath of transcendence inside was _abominable_.

The thing of meat was paralyzed, slipping against the palm of his hand of metal giving him a strange prickle with its own feverish heat.

- Yes, surrender yourself.

Thundercracker didn't realize how much passion, how much emotion he put in his words. It was difficult to compare himself with the enormousness of his own dilemma.

The spout of forced feeding oscillated on the metal wall together with the hooks that had incarcerated the human thing; the audio sensors of Thundercracker felt that pulsation with a precision and an intensity that would have been impossible for any form of terrestrial life. He could perceive outside the sound of the laboratory, and the humming produced by everything that was to be found even to a great distance.

And where the audio sensors didn't arrive there were other means. He could feel on different frequencies and different channels the things out and inside of him, and remain online, at the same time, with all his comrades.

Yet, any sound, any noise, for him seemed as horrendous as that that the human thing sent forth from its own lips, moving itself once more in its palm, and aiming to his eyes full of hate, of the same, same hate that Thundercracker had already seen so many times in the optics of the killed enemies, or in his own ones.

With a croaky, hoarse, horrendous and confused voice, the thing pronounced words that for the Decepticon didn't have any sense: - _I never saw a wild thing sorry for itself. A small bird will drop frozen dead from a bough without ever having felt sorry for itself. _

Thundercracker brought the thing on the wall of metal, anchoring the fleshling to its world of pain.

He slipped out with a fluidity, entirely different from the human fluidity, out of the laboratory, closing again the doors as if he had an army of enemies behind his shoulders. Leaving the assignment that had been assigned to him and told him to complete, he left for a cozy place. A place that made possible for him to think, and to be connected, without being found, to what remained of Internet : the best place to start to try to understand the sentence of an alien creature.

_(...to be continued.)_

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><p>The poem quoted is by D.H. Lawrence.<p>

I know that it seems _strange_ for the poor squishy to say that, but I had this poem in my mind and I wanted to put it somewhere, even though it is not proper... :p

_*This ff was originally written in Italian (if you'd like, check back my profile for the original version in my mother language), well, because I'm Italian!  
>I'm not a translator, I'm not good at all in English.<strong><br>Translating is far from being something that I can do properly.***_

Anyway, if you've read the story so far... thank you and _remember to comment!_ :-*

* * *

><p><strong>Disclaimer:<strong> I don't own Transformers, nor do I own its copyrighted characters.

_This is a fanfiction written **just for fun**, and no copyright infringement is intended!_

But I do own my original characters; so, please, do not reuse anything that is mine without permission.


	3. Chapter 3

_**Born to Die**_

**File…00.01.02 – _D. H. Lawrence_**

Internet, _what the terrestrials had called Internet_, according to Thundercraker, was pathetic and primordial at the same time. Nevertheless there was no other source to look through.

Within a moment the Decepticon had already stored every possible data, followed every link, absorbed every video and downloaded anything that had been written by D..

_D.._ Thundercracker stopped the search and focused on the name of this human that for him had no meaning at all.

A novelist.

As if the fleshlings could really pretend to be able of creativity.

He had to be gone crazy, completely fused. It would have been better to stop and to go back.

_While the doubt keeps flowing freely in your rusted head, eh?_

He might as well resolved everything, and immediately.

Some videos intrigued him: one of the most unpleasant aspects of his temporary mental illness. From a purely logical point of view he found that the thing the humans had called Television was lacking of logic, and that the TV shows were silly in a controversial manner; but there was something hypnotic in the attempt of the human bugs to speak about themselves: they did it continuously, continuously, as pushed by an immoderate desire for self-affirmation.

While a part of Thundercracker's memory kept on going from video to video, another part slowed down, asking for a greater fraction of attention, up to absorb it entirely.

Written words.

File. File. File.

_Lady Chatterley's Lover_.

His circuits twitched with horror and disgust because the disgusting principles of the human biology; the most annoying part of the earthlings. The most distant and revolting and incomprehensible thing for him. As organic creatures, the human ones had a quantity of needs and degrading functions that Thundercracker, nor his similar would have been able to judge less than barbaric.

The fleshy thing in the lab had offended him; the fleshy thing had fooled him offering the words of one of its disgusting similar: one who had written about some of the reprehensible effects of the humanity.

_Dirty creature!_

He would have crushed the thing under his own fingers, extinguished every rebellion, in the end, in a gesture of generosity. Before the end of all the analysis process, another quote attracted his attention: n_o absolute is going to make the lion lie down with the lamb unless the lamb is inside._

The Decepticon's fury prickled in his circuits, producing a deaf growl that flowed out from the depths of his metal body.

In a moment he had almost reached the door of the laboratory and stretched an arm to open it, ready to cancel every trace of his own stupidity. _He nearly did it. Nearly._

- Oh, what a surprise...

When he turned, Thundercracker's optics expressed nothing more than annoyance.

- Bombshell... - he hissed - What are you doing here? You have no business to do here right now.

The other Decepticon made a malicious giggle. And, at the same time, there was nothing else but malice in his optics.

- Not even you, since you were not here.

- What are you insinuating, bug? Do you spy on me, perhaps?

- No, not at all. Should have I done it? - he turned his back, leaving.

_Little, sadistic and defective bastard._

- I don't think so...

- Just... it's only that I had believed that this was your time to watch, right? But... The powerful and rigorous Thundercracker has disobeyed to the orders.

Before Thundercracker could move and decide to do something against that slag, against that stain of dirt on the history of Decepticons, Bombshell jumped, fast and precise, putting the greatest distance possible between them.

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><p>Another turn of watch, nothing more than this.<p>

The more logical among the punishments: to force him to repeat his duty and to prolong what he found detestable. The thing that, this has not escaped to anybody, seemed to give him the conviction to be about to degrade himself.

Well, to be more precise those were always _human business_; no sane one would have thought that he could find pleasant to make the watch into the lab. Unless you didn't call yourself Bombshell or in some other stupid way, and unless you had a passion for sadism.

Thundercracker looked around: no bugs in sight.

But he could never know, and if he had missed once more his own turn of watch the punishment would not have been as favorable.

He checked the laboratory, and closed the metal doors behind himself.

At least he had had the necessary time to elaborate a strategy.

The human thing locked to the walls didn't seem to be aware of his very presence, although every footstep of his made the ground quiver.

Thundercracker deposited what he had hidden and brought with himself on the floor, preparing to wait for the right moment: the end of the watch.

He approached the wall of prisoners, finding again the human thing that had challenged him.

The thing of meat now was silent, dangling from the metal rings that held back her as all the others. She was not dead, however.

Was she applying some weak strategy of survival? Probably. She had to know that hate would have provoked him. And that if Thundercracker had been one of his comrades... the whole thing could have pushed him towards the desire of torture and punishment. And, on the other hand, torture and punishment were always in his plans, only they were not on the top of the list. Not in this very moment.

Thundercracker had a more urgent need to resolve his doubts, to crush the human thing with his own superior logic and with his superior ethic. With his superior existence.

The human thing had thrown the gauntlet that could not be treated only with a butchery.

No, Thundercracker belonged to a more refined kind.

He stretched a finger to touch the thing.

Somehow he perceived her anger and her attempt to hide it.

He smiled.

Also the human thing must had had time to reflect.

- Don't you want me to kill you, mm?

Thundercracker pushed the thing from one side to the other, making her oscillate as a worm taken to the hook.

- Or are you able to understand that if you challenge me I will make you feel more and more pain, more degradation than you believe possible?

The human thing shivered, Thundercracker was certain that it was not only for fear, then the thing opened the eyes. Showing him that she would have not hide herself forever.

- So, are you a sentient creature then? Mm?

The fragile fleshy thing persisted to stay silent, carry on fixing her gaze on the Con's optics. Hold on to her hate as to the salvation.

Thundercracker was full of a wild joy, of an instinctive recognition towards another warrior. He didn't say anything; he kept only on touching the earthling, studying carefully her weakness. Tasting her soft fragility.

He allowed himself to indulge in the observation of the human anatomy that so much disgusted him. The time for him had not any sense; the whole evolution of the terrestrial had been only an instant. The time in the laboratory, now that his doubts had been submerged by new desires and new challenges, had the same value of the dust. But the time had to have a meaning for the squishy, because he saw her effort and her fight for not sinking. He saw her fighting not to close the eyes and to surrender.

At the end, Thundercracker opened with the maximum attention the handcuffs, and detached the drip of the forced feeding... and he picked up the squishy, then leaning her kindly to the ground.

He replaced his own new toy, locking on the wall the corpse that he had secretly brought with him.

Thundercracker closed the handcuff, fixed the drip of the feeding full of purple liquid and smiled.

Then he looked back at his new toy on the floor. The human thing had succeeded in rising, and now she fixed with inexpressible horror the bed of the experiments and its burden of meat and metal. Thundercracker stretched the hand but, prey to the desperation, she succeeded in escaping among his fingers. The Decepticon cursed the earthling in his native language; he could not simply grab her without attentions and give her a shake, because she would be dead even before to offer him some satisfaction to repay him for everything.

But she was too much weak, and she succeed in doing only few meters before collapsing.

Also in this state she kept on trying to crawl towards the dark; Thundercracker was not able not to find obscene that movements. With acute annoyance, that he didn't succeed in qualifying entirely, he picked up the thing, lifting her up to the height of his own optics. Tasting her ugliness, and the full shine of her human poverty.

- No... - he hissed.

He held her firm and practiced the strength necessary to made possible for her brain to run out of oxygene. And then she became flabby among his own fingers, making him try an anticipation of triumph. He hid her with care, and prepared himself to bring her out before somebody else arrived for a new shift of watch.

_(...to be continued.)_

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><p><em>*This ff was originally written in Italian (if you'd like, check back my profile for the original version in my mother language), well, because I'm Italian!<br>I'm not a translator, I'm not good at all in English.**  
>Translating is far from being something that I can do properly.<strong>*_

Anyway, if you've read the story so far... thank you and _remember to comment!_ :-*

**Disclaimer:** I don't own Transformers, nor do I own its copyrighted characters._  
>This is a fanfiction written <strong>just for fun<strong>, and no copyright infringement is intended!_  
>But I do own my original characters; so, please, do not reuse anything that is mine without permission.<p> 


	4. Chapter 4

_**Born to Die**_

**File…00.01.03 – The Hideout**

To let someone in on his own room, in his own intimacy was inconceivable for Thundercracker, or for any Decepticon. He had thought for a good while about the right place to hold the squishy; and that place could not be there, not in the base.

On the other hand it could not be too far, because Thundercracker didn't have any intention to spend his own time justifying himself for absences and unexpected flights; and there was not a chance on a million that he could accept the earthling inside his cockpit, not even to satisfy his own curiosity.

_No human inside him. Never. _

Just the very idea sent him in tilt, making him burn with shame.

For this reason he had flown and analyzed carefully the area around the base, obtaining enough data to determine the best hideout.

While he was about to reach the selected coordinates, Thundercracker had kept on perceiving an annoying humming originated from his gears, while his own CPU persisted to analyze any potential blind spot in his plan. First of all: the human necessities.

Water, food; only Primus knew _what_.

And there was the whole series of other matters that for his own sanity the CPU of Thundercracker had buried deeply inside him. Maybe would have been wiser to crush the creature between his own fingers, suffocate her while she had still been fainting and abandon her here in the lab.

_And nevertheless... never turn back! _

With the due attention, the Decepticon reached the destination, and congratulated with himself: hardly any bot in the universe would have given some attention to that disgusting hole. And it was literally a hole; an explosion had opened a monumental crater in the ground, devastating a whole road and the skyscrapers that the terrestrials had built to boast their own grandeur. Of some buildings had not been left anything else than rubble, and an incongruous panel of cement that must had been a roof or something like this, and a cistern of water half disemboweled that was in unstable balance as an ugly rusted swimming pool.

All around... pylons, plates of metal, and debris had drawn a ghostly landscape able to offer refuge from possible indiscreet eyes. Each Thundercracker's footstep lifted small storms of dust and dirt, of sheets of paper and shreds of cloth that whirled in the air and then returned to land behind his shoulders.

_Primus!_ That was the result of the orders of Megatron.

Thundercracker had difficulties in assimilate this insane destruction; it was like if their leader had sent them to crush ants' dens in the jungle. He knew what the ants' dens and the jungle were through Google, obviously. And like a lot of his other knowledge about human business... these where _accidental_ knowledge.

To admit to spend too much of his own leisure time in the search for every damned shred of information about the terrestrial-slags was too much. Thundercracker's internal ventilation system produced a puffing sound, then the Decepticon stopped and lifted his own earthling at his optics level to grant her a dispassionate look. If she stayed unconscious she was useless.

An electric shock could be helpful, or perhaps not. Shake her up until she was awake could it be worse. To give off an unpleasant sound for the human auditory apparatus could be the best solution... but the half destroyed rooftop water tower attracted his attention. After all, all the squishies had to wash; well, this was exactly one of the thoughts that he would have had to be buried deeply in his memory, marked as a taboo, but... his sense of dignity and decency suggested him that, if really he had to possess a human, she would have been very, very clean. Very clean indeed. _So... _

Well, not that this made the whole business acceptable: the humans were dirty by nature; but he could plunge the squishy in the water with a certain regularity.

Thundercracker returned to look in the most dispassionate way at his small and fragile burden. He reached the water tower and he lowered the hand, letting the water gently touch the tortured body. His optics recorded the scene, analyzing with curiosity the reaction of the body to the cold, and the very action. Then a thought popped out from nothing, as a thunder: one thing was the awareness that the earthlings had to wash themselves, but a very different thing was to know _that a Decepticon was washing an earthling_. For an instant the sight of Thundercracker trembled in a rush of anger and shame, and then his hand abandoned the sleeping body.

Thundercracker withdrew himself, hissing, prey of a new rush of anger towards the thing that kept on tormenting him.

The body went down, Thundercracker saw it slipping under the surface of the water to the fund covered of rust and small algae. Beads of oxygen escaped from the lips of his dying toy. Then not more.

Terminated. Dead.

The sense of shame blended to the disappointment and anger. Then the sensors of Thundercracker recorded a change: he stretched one hand, dipping a finger. The earthling hovered in the water, meeting the metal, and hunging on to the finger to be drag up quickly.

An instant after, Thundercracker placed her on the plate of cement, observing with all the strength of his own blame the terrestrial involved in those that had to be the most common activities of her race: to cough and to spit out without any dignity. With a gasp she turned, in search for oxygen, the respiratory tract finally free.

The fact that a giant bot, her potential killer, the same kind of her new evil masters impended on her with curiosity... entirely forgotten and surpassed by the need of air, and from the relief to breathe again.

Yet the matter of the giant bot could not stay into the background for too much; Thundercracker realized it with a pinch of dismay, because... to have the possibility to study the creature without that her behavior was altered from his very presence seemed a fascinating idea.

The eyes of the fleshy met his optics, making a pleasant shiver flow along his circuits.

- Bastard... - she croaked.

Thundercracker tilted his head and lowered it, moving himself to record her image from every angle, acquiring data and new questions.

The damned earthling grabbed a handful of dust and threw it towards his optics, the Decepticon was sure that if she had had underhand some grenade or some other kind of explosive she would have launched it to him in the same way. Obviously dust was worthless, but it darkened for an instant his view and it tore him a curse in his native language. There was no possibility to escape, but the earthling, with great joy of the Decepticon, likewise tried to run.

But, this time, surprising him, she did no more than few steps and then she sat on the ground, trying to cover herself with her own arms. Preventing him to look at her body.

_Ah, shame!_

Thundercracker had recorded the fact that commonly the terrestrials wore suits, but he had not delve into that. Simply he had taken for granted that this was about instinct, about the primordial defenses from the atmospheric conditions, a protection of their fragile skin, of their weak bodies. The reaction of his squishy, suggested a new developments. The most logical deduction was that the humans felt shame for their own bodies if compared with the power and the durability of the bodies of their invaders.

Thundercracker straightened himself, showing his own glorious body, sure to intimidate and to humiliate the squishy with his own strength. _With his own superiority. _Then he remained to stare at her waiting for some reaction.

_A surrender_.

But she didn't anything else than stay there, trembling and covering herself, hiding herself behind the look of fire that the Decepticon had learned to know very well.

No attempt to escape, no words, nothing of nothing.

Thundercracker asked himself if she were mentally damaged, or if his glory had upset her up to the point to annihilation. The humans had improper and incomprehensible reactions, this was the only certain thing.

He bend again, returning to study her, and this seemed to make her lose control. Pushing her to withdraw, without stopping to protect her own body.

- Now, stop it! - he hissed, annoyed.

- Bastard! Fucked bastard, perverted bastard!

Thundercracker puffed, stretching the hands and grabbing her.

- What did you say, ant? - he lifted her, holding her for the wrists and lifting her to the height of his own optics.

- My patience is about to be exhausted quickly. - he snarled.

She ground her theet, the face reddened by anger, by the strive, and by something that Thundercracker didn't succeed in understanding and that caused him stress and frustration.

- You should thank me... - he specified - Because I will allow you to die with dignity, out of that laboratory.

The idea of not being anymore incarcerated to a metal wall seemed to flow for the first time in her head. Thundercracker saw her rolling her eyes to watch the sky and the new environment.

- Oh, God, oh my God... - she hissed, then as overpowered by a sense of superior shock she surrendered, stopping to contract muscles and to oppose resistance, limiting herself to dangle without strengths among the fingers of his new master.

- You... are you one of the good boys? - she asked with feeble voice.

Thundercracker didn't need an explanation for this last thing.

- No. - he blew, going near the squishy, making to blink the blood light in his optics.

- I am not... - he announced with incongruous sweetness. On Google he had recorded some terrestrial idioms - _Out of the frying pan into the fire_... sorry.

_(...to be continued.)_

* * *

><p><strong>Disclaimer:<strong> I don't own Transformers, nor do I own its copyrighted characters._  
>This is a fanfiction written <strong>just for fun<strong>, and no copyright infringement is intended!  
>But I do own my original characters; so, please, do not reuse anything that is mine without permission.<br>_


	5. Chapter 5

_**Born to Die**_

**File…00.01.04 – Why?**

The earthlings' little autonomy was annoying.

Thundercracker had realized with a certain apprehension that his little toy had the bad habit to turn off more frequently than he originally believed. To be prey of continuous blackout was a bad omen; not that he really cared for it. But to give up in the middle of the affair would have seemed as a miserable failure. And to keep on stealing humans from the laboratory didn't seem reasonable, or sane.

If Skywarp had discovered his eccentric habits, things could have gone worse; in a never-ending mock, if he had been lucky, or worse indeed. Puffing in disappointment he sat on the ground, careless of the crack had opened under his weight and of the avalanche of debris that had slipped along the crater. That place was perfect: there was no possible way out for the flesh bag. Thundercracker had hidden the earthling in a hole, very similar to a cave open among the wreckage. If she was back online quickly, giving an end to the blackout, he had stretched an hand to take her out for a while, in the very way the humans take dogs out for a walk; but at worst she would have remained hidden in the cave till he would be back. Alone, caged.

He didn't have reason to keep his CPU busy on these thoughts, anyway. He lifted the head sounding carefully the sky that was changing color. The wind had swept away part of the dust and the smoke, leaving exposed a strip of horizon. Red near to the ground. And above... blue, a beautiful blue declined in thousand of tones, quilted by the lights of the stars and the artificial satellites.

There was something good even on that planet, after all: _the sky_.

Thundercracker gave a last glance to the hidden cave, now surrounded by the shades. Then he lifted, transforming and aiming aloft for a liberating flight. _Ah, cease to restrain himself! _Push his ability to the top, aware of the strength of every gear, on, on, more aloft. Up to the end of the world. _Up to the end of the world. _

Thousand of years, million of terrestrial years and he didn't know yet if there was indeed a definitive boundary, somewhere in the Galaxy, in this one or in all the others.

_A boundary to be crossed for not returning back_.

He took speed, interrupting every thought to focus on the pleasant humming that the friction with the air produced. Then, abruptly, he stopped the propulsion, letting himself tilt on a side and then fall nosedive, and then in fast, ample spirals. Towards that dirty and evil-smelling ground.

He took back control, perceiving the presence of someone that was quickly reaching him

- Let's play! - Skywarp opened the connection, succeeding in making him feel less overburdened by his thoughts.

But was Starscream that reached him first, and overtook him.

_Egomaniac!_

- Who was that blue scrap? - the voice of the Commander of the Seekers always contained a note of sarcasm. He always sounded like a scratch over the metal, exactly like his very personality.

Thundercracker ignored him, letting him run up towards the sky. Looking for the same satisfactions that himself was searching for a moment before.

But Skywarp was another matter.

- I feel them, I feel them... I terminate them!

- What... - Thundercracker speeded up before Skywarp could succeed in crash into him, leaving him in his own wake.

- Ugh! Operation termination Thundercracker's thoughts still in progress. Target... direct fire!

_Primus! _Skywarp was so damnedly childlike sometime.

_Childlike... as a child with a lollipop!_

Thundercracker would not have wanted to realize from where that image had come from, but... there was little to do: _Google. Humans. Intergalactic slags! _

He lost concentration just for a moment and an instant later Skywarp was no more on the monitor. Not that he had to have him on the monitor to know as he would have behaved; Thundercracker changed direction abruptly, aiming upward while Skywarp reappeared there where he thought that they would be almost about to crash.

- If you are a moron... teleportation doesn't work properly! - Thundercracker sneered.

- Rude! Filthy mouth! - the unequivocal complaining note in the voice of his comrade made him feel very good.

Skywarp reached him, placing side by side with him, and keeping on chattering of rather useless things.

Together they flew, then they diverged from the common rout to allow Starscream to cross them returning back from the opposite direction.

Thundercracker thought about how they could have been seen from the Earth. About how they were seen by the terrestrials. _Poor creatures without wings._ With wide open mouths and eyes lifted towards the sky to admire dances that in a million years they would not have been able to understand, and the perfection, the nobility of their glimmering, metal bodies in the light of the stars and the satellites.

_He can pity them easily in moments like these_.

_Great birds of the sky, messengers of the gods. _If they had arrived without the war, in a different time, would they have welcomed them as divinity? And his own fleshling, was she looking at them? Was she looking at him admiring his majesty? Perhaps without understanding him... amazed, dismayed. The thought made him quiver. He raised, drawing a perfect spiral again, enjoying the feeling to have no limits, not any necessity to restrain.

_To fly._

They were indeed gods, only because they could fly.

They continued in their dances in silence, exchanging only occasional messages before returning towards the base. When they landed, Skywarp reached him.

- Where have you been for the whole damned terrestrial day?

- Turn of watch.

The other one nodded, annoyed - It sucks!

- Well, yeah... - they did no say anything more.

* * *

><p>The sun had risen and gone down twice on the miserable planet Earth, before Thundercracker had the opportunity to return to the crater. At the twilight, he had been finally able to visit his own squishy. He inserted an hand in the small artificial cave and he threw her out. She seemed even weaker when he deposed her to the ground to be able to observe her properly. The hate in her eyes also seemed submerged by something new and different, unpleasant.<p>

- So... - he whispered bending himself on her – are you to an end?

- You would like it... - he saw her trembling, fight against a shiver and find a shred of strength to be able to face him - I won't die this way. I won't die while you are watching me as a fucking entertainment, bastard!

Thundercracker tilted the head. It was the contrary, he knew it. She would have provoked him up to exhaust him; she was in search for a way to die, to been killed quickly. She desired to be crushed by his finger, to gain freedom in death. _Small, cunning little thing! _

No, there was something wrong. Because he had brought her out of the laboratory, and he was sure, sure, sure that his squishy was stronger and tenacious more than that. And that she would have been able to challenge him for more and more time, and not only to try to save the honor with a surrender camouflaged by rebellion.

_No, there was something wrong_.

He didn't know practically nothing about the human anatomy, but her face was marked as it had not been two days before. What was wrong? There were... the necessities of the humans once more? Which part had he omitted? The answer was very obvious to make him feel a perfect idiot. Two human days were nothing for him, but her... she needed food!

He had taken something useful from the lab. An escort of the combustible, of the fuel, that was used for forcedly feeding the humans used for the experiments. He looked around, and he inserted the hand in another hole among the rubbles, extracting a sort of barrel, making to jump its coverage with a small hit of one oh his fingers. Inside the barrel had been hoarded numerous tanks that contained the fuel. He put a fuel tank close to the squishy.

- Here... - he announced, feeling the familiar sense of bother that upset him every time he had the impression _to be on the point to take care of her._

He waited, observing her. Then, finally, the squishy bit her own lips, and showed a pinch of the weakness that he desired.

- What... what is it?

- Fuel, nourishment.

She had to be mentally damaged, because she kept on looking at the container of metal without doing nothing.

Impatient, Thundercracker pushed the fuel tank towards her with a finger.

- Feed yourself.

With a deep breath, that gratified him a lot, the earthling stretched an hand, laboriously fumbling with the cover of the tank and succeeding in opening it.

Thundercracker saw her open wide the eyes, to withdraw and to slip to the ground.

- No, no, no! - she hissed.

- No? - she was not comprehensible.

Illogical, illogical creature!

- Not, anymore! Not anymore that poison! - she sobbed - I Prefer to die.

It didn't have sense. None of her actions had sense.

To starve and to refuse the food when it was offered to her?

- Why? - Thundercracker bent more over her, impending, threatening.

She didn't answer, limiting herself to look at him with her weak eyes deprived of light. As if that could be enough to pass some type of communication among them, a communication that for Thundercracker was _alien_, unknown. Yet... not so alien.

The laboratory, for sure! _Humiliation, subjugation, abuse... _

That was the food of her new masters, what she had had to assume against her own wish to be maintained in her condition of animal test, to be ready to be submitted to the unimaginable.

But there was no other way...

This remained the only possible procedure.

The roar that went up again from the circuits of Thundercracker sounded threatening, deprived of sympathy. The Decepticon grabbed the earthling and lifted her, picking up the small metal tank with the other hand.

- Obey me... - he blew, opposing a strength that she didn't have the opportunity to win with her resistance. Weakening her with the deprivation of air, up to when she was not entirely almost inactive. Then he pulled up the tank to her mouth, forcing her to drink.

But how much she need to drink? Was it the correct way? Thundercracker didn't know, he succeeded only in feeling frustrated and guilty because he was working for kept her alive. He would not have owed, and he didn't care, but he had need to know.

To know more than the representation that the humans gave of themselves on Internet or in their stupid movies and books.

His squishy restart to fight, while part of the violet liquid slipped along her neck, and other was spit out while she was searching for air. Thundercracker persisted to force her in drinking.

Then he realized that her heart was beating too quickly, and stopped, throwing away the tank. He deposed the squishy on the ground, feeling guilty for his own insanity.

A small electric shock run along his circuits when he realized that the nourishment had effect in an unthinkable way for the terrestrial food; he recorded the scene with a sort of lust: the color that returned on her face, the disappearance of the marks around her eyes. The weak, withered muscles returned strong...

But, instead of bending before him, she shacked the head, tightening her arms around her body.

- I don't want it... I don't want it anymore...

- Why? - after every solution she opened other hundred thousand of questions. Points of view that his own CPU found impossible.

_Why... why... why?_

In a rush of anger Thundercracker lifted her, stretching the hand to crush the female and to terminate her.

- Why?

Her eyes were burning - Because it _changes me!_

_(...to be continued.)_

* * *

><p><strong>Disclaimer:<strong> I don't own Transformers, nor do I own its copyrighted characters._  
>This is a fanfiction written <strong>just for fun<strong>, and no copyright infringement is intended!  
>But I do own my original characters; so, please, do not reuse anything that is mine without permission.<br>_


	6. Chapter 6

_**Born to Die**_

**File…00.01.05 – Answers**

_Download number 00786FG98... _

An air skirmish without any importance. To shoot down the human warplane and their pilots was anything else than a boring routine. He could manage this business and at the same time focus on his moral problems on the dishonor that he was sure to bring to his warrior soul.

Or...

Or he could keep on downloading video from the Internet.

Well, human videos were rubbish without importance that frustrated and depressed him, that made him feel like an idiot.

But...

_Download number 00786FG98... _

Thundercracker crossed the curtain of flames and slags left by a jet explosion, while another part of his memory was focused on the old film in black and white. An earthling, dressed in a rather absurd way and with an eccentric hat, was questioning a human female in a little room illuminated by just one desk light; and it seemed that the female had some answers to give him, and that she was also anxious to do it.

Their interaction left him entirely perplexed. _Incomprehensible_.

This is the way things go among terrestrial?

The low quality of the video was disgusting, but Thundercracker kept on following the action in the movie, while everything around him exploded and the air battle went on, but that for him wasn't a threat.

_- I want my answers. _

_- Oh, Jack, I can give you whatever you want... everything you desire. _

_- Who has stolen the frog of jade? _

Thundercracker recorded in a vague way to have killed another earthling aviator.

* * *

><p>The intruder stopped on the edge of the crater.<p>

The moonlight painted eccentric shades on the steep faces covered by debris, shades in which it was possible to hide an enemy; but there was no one. The intruder easily detected the best place to slip down, challenging the height and the devastated ground with the ability of a consumed climber.

He grabbed to an overhang, stopping to the level of the entrance of the cave. And he jumped towards the entry, landing without difficulty.

Then... he bent just in time to shun the hit, and the wood axle broke on the wall behind his shoulders, making woody splinters to rain around.

He jumped forward, detecting without difficulty his aggressor; she slipped in the dark, inside the cave, evidently pondering that her possibilities would have been more favorable if she had remained in the darkness.

But for the intruder darkness wasn't a problem, neither it was to move in perfect silence.

She didn't realize that he was on her; but she grabbed two sharp stones from the ground, tightened among her hands.

The intruder smiled, blowing on her neck and succeeding into forcing out of her a moan of fear.

She was awkward in the movements, inaccurate. Slow. And her attack obviously was pointless.

The intruder grabbed her wrists, forcing her to open the hands, and making to fall the stones.

He crushed her against the wall, making her to cough and to thrash about for the avalanche of dust and debris that they had succeeded in shifting.

- No... - he blew -Tell me, who has stolen the frog of jade?

She still waggled, untill he didn't practice so much strength to leave some bruises on her arms. He let her go partially, holding back her just for a wrist and dragging her towards the entrance of the cave.

He hardly realized the resistance that she continued to oppose, and that became stronger when they were on the edge of the precipice at the entrance. Become impatient, he turned and he tightened her, dragging her down in a second, and without damage; he kept on tightening her up to the moment when they reached the disemboweled water tower, and then he let her go.

- Now stay still, stretch out and look at the sky... - he suggested her, or, perhaps, it was simply an order - I Want my answers...

- What the hell are you speaking about?

- This way you make things worse... - he objected, imitating the voice of the main character of the movie he had seen.

Incredulously, she obeyed, without daring to look at him. She felt he was sitting next to her, then he went closer.

He started to study the woman with attention.

Everything could happen, and there was nothing to do about that. She discovered that was easier stop to think, just... wait. Thoughts would not have changed the situation. The prayers would not have thrown her out of this mess. No more logic, no more common sense could help.

- Who are you? - he could be one of the horrendous experiments born into the laboratory: any other normal, common man wouldn't have succeeded in reaching that place; an experiment gone bad and out of head - What do you want? Why are you here? Can you bring me out of this place?

_Stay strong... stay focused..._

- Look at the sky, and pretend that I'm not there... - the fingers of the stranger lifted one of her hair locks, then they rubbed it, and gently they put it again to its place - I need to learn...

_He was crazy. _

They remained in silence, for minutes, or for hours.

- I want some answers. I have some questions... - the man whispered in her ear, giving her a shiver.

_She had to do something... but... what?_

- Me to: who are you? What do you want? Why are you here? Can you bring me home?

He snickered, giving her the impression that he wasn't used to do that. It seemed like a false sound, synthetic. Recorded.

- It doesn't matter. Answers. To watch you. No.

She tighten her fists - Who are you? Who the hell are you? Do you come from the laboratory?

He grabbed her, and gave her a shake- _I am tired, I am tired, I am tired, I am tired, I am tired, I am tired, I am tired, I am tired, I am tired, I am tired, I am tired..._ - he announced with a metallic voice, that gave her the shivers - Give me the answers and surrender...

He was crazy. In the best of the hypotheses he was crazy.

He shook the head, as if he was trying to stay focused - I allow you to survive. Don't you appreciate my generosity, female?

- Who the hell are you? - she howled, incapable to hold back the anger - What the hell you want from me? - her heart beated so strongly like it was about to explode, and she hardly could breathe. But the most terrible thing was the insane direction that had taken her thoughts.

- _Answers. Answers. Answers. Answers. Answers. The frog of jade... _

He was crazy and... not human, because no human would have succeeded in repeating the same word in the same way, in the same robotic, exasperated tone.

_Good God!_

This gave the coup of grace to her ability of understanding: _the Aliens existed, the Aliens had arrived on Earth to destroy the humans, the Aliens were giant robot, the giant robots had imprisoned her in a laboratory where the humans were grafted mechanical parts, the giant robots could be disguised by humans_...

_A giant robot had developed an obsession for her._

_Shit. _This was reality? _Shit! _

Suddenly she realized that there was enough light, and that the sun was about to rise. She focused on the physical aspect of the man. On the strange color of his hair: a dark tone of blue, almost black. And on his eyes. Red eyes.

He kept on shaking her, keeping on repeating that single accursed word: _answers_. Just as if both were, tragically or comically, on the edge of an hysteric crisis. He was hurting her; she succeeded in reaching with the mouth the hand that he held on her shoulder and she bit him. The teeth sank in the flesh, in what seemed flesh, but it was icy... and then they bumped against metal.

She let him go, screaming for the pain and the shock.

If she had tried to kick him, to hit him... would not have served, not even if she had been a bodybuilder or a champion of kick-boxing.

In some way she succeeded in escaping to him, but the man took her back, and dragged her towards the cistern.

She could read on his face that he had lost every trace of control.

He Inserted her head in the water, then lifted and shook her.

- Answers! - another dive in the water - Answers! - and still down.

It seemed that he was... jammed; that his brain was melted, or any other devilry that was possible for a robot.

Then, suddenly, he stopped, his eyes were turned, and he fell... dragging her above his body.

* * *

><p><em>Primus! What have I done? <em>

To a certain distance from the crater, Thundercracker took back control of his own original body, too exhausted to keep on managing the other; the synthetic simulacrum, much more than an holoform, that would have had to imitate entirely the human features, and to serve in the case an infiltration among the enemy lines was necessary. But that strategic possibility had been put aside, luckily, and cataloged for what was: an unworthy masquerade. The management of the synthetic body was not simple as the management of an holoform; and this had been his first time. _A total failure!_

There was some glitch; something made impossible to fully express him inside that horrible substitute body; sending him in tilt.

And now the accursed body was out there, and Thundercracker knew that he had to bring it inside the base.

His circuits were frying, emitting not reassuring hummings.

How stupid he was! What insane idea had been to try to hide the squishy. To send before her a form that allowed both to interact in a more natural way.

He was going crazy, there was no other possibility.

He sent the necessary command to delete all the files that that he had downloaded, above all "The Mystery of the Frog of Jade", begging to have the necessary concentration and that nobody came to look for him until he was outside.

* * *

><p>Was he dead?<p>

She stepped away from the dead body. For sure she had never seen anybody dying like this. Frozen.

She gave a look around, were the robots spying on her? Was this some accursed tests?

God, that _what-d'yer-call-it_ was dressed... after all he was a robot, a cyborg or a similar thing. If she had stolen him some suits... it would not exactly have been as to plunder a _true_ corpse.

She started to fumble with the shirt, but to unthread it was difficult. _A lot. _

At the end she succeeded, and she wore it, owner of her own dignity again, feeling full of dignity after those that seemed years. She recorded the presence of a blue t-shirt, but she didn't have any desire to still stay close to the human-robot, and the shirt was enough for the purpose of being dressed.

_What the hell was the frog of jade, then?_

She stopped, passing the hands among her hair and trying to rearrange the thoughts.

She couldn't leave the body like this, but he was too much heavy to move.

_Stones. Stones!_

She had to cover him with stones.

She tried to left in search for the necessary to bury him... but an hand, one of steel, stopped her. And two red eyes nailed her down with an accusatory look.

- I'm back online.

_(...to be continued.)_

* * *

><p><em><strong>Disclaimer: <strong>__I don't own Transformers, nor do I own its copyrighted characters._

_This is a fanfiction written just for fun, and no copyright infringement is intended!_

_But I do own my original characters; so, please, **do not reuse anything that is mine without**_

_**permission.**_


End file.
